Epiphany (1709)
Painting by Samuel Theodor Gericke , Caputh Castle
The Dreikönigstreffen refers to the meeting of the rulers of the Prussian King Frederick I as host, the Elector Augustus the Strong of Saxony (and past and future king in Poland ) and King Frederick IV of Denmark from July 2 to 17, 1709 in Potsdam and Berlin .
The reason was the efforts of Denmark and Saxony to persuade the Kingdom of Prussia to enter the Great Northern War . In addition to the extensive festivities (including in Caputh Castle ), little was politically moved. Only a friendship and neutrality treaty was concluded between the three monarchs.
Diplomatic background
The Kingdom of Denmark and the Electorate of Saxony and Poland-Lithuania, ruled in personal union by August the Strong, were, with interruption, embroiled in the Great Northern War against Sweden with Russia from 1700 onwards .
On October 29, 1706, August concluded the Altranstadt peace with Sweden and renounced the Polish crown “forever”. Saxony was thus temporarily withdrawn from the war. Denmark, which had also briefly not participated in the war, concluded a new alliance with Russia on June 28, 1709 against Sweden. The alliance envisaged another attack by Denmark on Sweden.
Prussia, whose forces were tied up in the War of the Spanish Succession , and Sweden had concluded an eternal alliance on August 16, 1707 , which included guarantees of ownership, a mutual non-aggression pact and a mutual commitment of 6,000 auxiliary troops in the event of an attack. In addition, Prussia recognized Stanislaus Lesczynski, who was appointed by Sweden, as the rightful Polish king.
The main Swedish army under King Charles XII. was in July 1709 on the campaign against the Russian Empire and in the spring of 1709 stood before Poltava . There, at the same time as the conference in Potsdam, the Swedes suffered a crushing defeat in the Battle of Poltava on July 8, 1709, which subsequently turned the war in favor of the anti-Swedish alliance.
Course of the conference
After his return from Italy to Dresden , the Danish King Friedrich IV came to the court of Augustus the Strong. There the two monarchs decided to win Prussia as an ally. Then the King of Denmark and the Elector of Saxony traveled to Potsdam at the invitation of the Prussian King .
Received appropriately, the highlights, in addition to the glamorous and splendid festivities and a hunt on July 5th, were the Havel trip with the famous luxury yacht "Liburnica" on July 8th to Caputh . On July 9th, the kings went to Oranienburg . On July 10th, the three monarchs held a joint council of state, in which each monarch had only one advisor with him. On July 11th, the monarchs visited Charlottenburg . The following day they went to Berlin, where the two guest monarchs were godparents of the granddaughter of Friedrich Wilhelmine , who was born on July 3, 1709 . On July 16 the monarchs went to lunch with the ambassador of Great Britain, Lord Raby , and in the evening with the Lord Chamberlain, Count von Wartenberg . On the same evening the Danish monarch left Berlin for Denmark again. August the Strong returned to Dresden the following day.
Results
Hardly anything remained of the original plans to persuade Prussia with Warmia to enter the war. Despite all the initial enthusiasm for the project, the Berlin court remembered the neutrality obligations with Sweden in 1686, 1696 and 1707. In addition to a mutual guarantee of ownership, the only agreement was that Prussia should not take sides against the two powers and that the Swedes should not be allowed to pass through.
Through this meeting, the Prussian king had found the opportunity to show the still young Prussian monarchy as being on a par with other monarchs through the splendid representation. However, the costs exceeded the financial means of the Prussian state, so the king had a bank loan taken out.
The meeting of three kings was a rare event in diplomacy at the time. The three kings, all of whom were named Friedrich, belonged to three different Christian denominations . The Prussian king was a Calvinist , the Danish king was a Lutheran , and the Elector of Saxony was a Catholic .
literature
- Vinzenz Czech: The Potsdam Epiphany Meeting 1709. Cuivillier Verlag, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 9783867276382 ( online ).
- Carl Friedrich Pauli : General Prussian state history including the associated kingdom, electorate, duchies, principalities, counties and lordships from proven writers and documents up to the current government. Volume 7. Publishing and printing by Christoph Peter Franckens, Halle 1767, digitized .
- Werner Schmidt: Friedrich I. Elector of Brandenburg King in Prussia. Heinrich Hugendubel, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-424-01319-6 .
Web links
- Vinzenz Czech: Meeting of the Three Kings 1709 . In: Historical Lexicon of Brandenburg . September 9, 2019.